Summer of Colour is Red, and a little clean out.

Kristins' Summer of Colour Challenge for this week was RED! Just so happened I had a bit of a dyeing frenzy last week. And of course it was a big pot of RED.

The Scarlet Women's Apron

Cottons and different laces were all thrown into the pot with varying results. This with some rose fabric,old crocheted doilies and coffee stained and stamped muslin added. I made myself a shabby apron.

I filled up an acrylic stamp block with all the phrases I had and madly stamped the muslin and the waist and neck ties. Lace was layered over the top. I then cut out  roses from some fabric I had bought and appliqued them on.

The little 'clean out' occurred because I am following a little program by the author Denise Linn, on revitalizing your life. One of her daily projects is to de-clutter.
I was in the bathroom this morning and noticed an old carved camphor wood box my parents had given me as an 18 yo. It sat on the side of bath not really bothering anybody up until this moment. I stared at it for a few seconds and decided its time had come! It is only a small box and was filled with old broken jewelry from days gone by. So I emptied that and am considering making some sort of shrine from a canvas utilising some of it and the rest can go into mixed media.

 Now that  little box wasn't really important in the scheme of de-cluttering. It was what came next that was more important on an emotional 'de-cluttering' level. The little box took all of 5 minutes to empty. There was no emotional attachment to anything in it. But when that was completed I wandered over to a shelf in the closet and pulled down an old typewriter box. In this box was letters, cards, invitations, certificates etc etc of years going back to when I was 10! It was time to get a little ruthless. 

Proteas in my garden today

There were cards from people I hadn't seen in 20 odd years. Wedding invitations from people long divorced. It took me nearly 2 hours! Do I feel better? Not sure. There were moments of poignancy when I came across sympathy cards for my hubby when his young brother was killed in a car accident over 30 years ago. They went. The wedding invitations went. Our love letters and cards to each other stayed. Children's drawings and letters stayed. There are items that are given in love and they are the things you keep around you. All the things that reminded me of sad events went. So maybe on some deep level I feel lighter. I know the box felt lighter when I put it away!

Now that was very long winded, sorry about that :-) I'm now off to sit in the little bit of winter sun to be found with a hot cup of coffee and a new little cook book.

x Julie